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RANDY WESTON
TRIO AND SOLO
Randy Weston, as a rapidly growing number of jazz listeners have
discovered, is a distinctive and highly talented pianist. He is without
doubt, well on his way to being a big musician.
Let me quickly add that there is no pun intended by that "big," even
though he is also a man who (as the striking cover photograph makes clear)
has reached a height commonly associated only with professional basketball
players.
While it's impossible to avoid this matter of size, there is also no
purpose served by overemphasizing it. Let's face it, being tall is fine
fur things like reaching high shelves, and breathing in crowded elevators.
It also has its gloomier side: having to put up with bad jokes of the
how's-the-weather-up-there variety; and not being able to get your knees
under most piano keyboards. Being so tall is also an impressive
attention-getter.
Devices such as the photo on this cover are surely helpful, Just as long
as they are legitimate: posing him with a sports car does emphasize
Randy's height, but it is a real car, not a toy or a camera trick.
However, what any performer with non-standard attributes must be wary of
is "cute" publicity. (For some reason, I recall a six-foot, four-inch
showgirl who was briefly married to a midget, which I always considered to
be in, shall we say, slightly dubious taste..) it should be reasonably
obvious that, aside from a certain physical advantage gained from
extremely long-fingered hands, short or tall has nothing to do with
musical abilities. Weston just happens to be tall; he is a superior jazz
artist. To risk getting in the way of anyone's appreciation of his music
by obscuring that distinction would be a major crime.
The material that makes up this album offers two sets of views of a talent
that is consistently lyrical, tasteful, genuinely inventive, and guided by
a sure and forthright beat. On Side 1, Randy is featured in the kind of
framework that is the modern pianist's normal setting: with drums and bass
in support. Among the more striking differences between current and
earlier jazz forms is that a piano player's left hand has ceased to be
employed strictly as a rhythmic base. With the other rhythm instruments
taking over that function, the piano-led trio of today is generally the
equivalent of the unaccompanied piano of the past. This however, need not
mean that solo piano has become a lost art. Weston demonstrates that point
on Side 2.
The trio here includes Sam Gill and as a special guest Art Blakey. The
surging Mr. Blakey, long recognized as one of the very finest of modern
jazz drummers, is a long-standing friend of Weston's, and offers him a
rare degree of close-knit, well-integrated support. Art's work here adds
just one more startling bit of proof of his ability (shared by very few
other drummers) to provide valuable rhythmic backing and, at the same
time, to make important creative contributions of his own. Gill, who has
studied at Juilliard and elsewhere, was Randy's regular bassist until he
entered the Army in 1956, and the two men had achieved what critic John S.
Wilson accurately tabbed as "exceptional! rapport."
The uptempo "Sweet Sue, just You" that kicks off the album points up
Western's capacities for freshness and exploration in the clearest
possible way, by showing Jus! how much newness he can pump into an old
warhorse. The other standard, "Again." is a ballad of 1948 vintage that
had its fling at popularity and, in due course, faded away, But its
haunting melodic line stayed in Randy's mind, to emerge as this warm
mood-piece. Of the three originals, one is the work of Sam Gill "Solemn
Meditation," an introspective and changing piece that swings much more
than its title would indicate and that offers its composer an opportunity
for some extended solo work. "Zulu" is described by Weston as a
development of a "primitive" blues theme; "Pam's Waltz" (inspired by
Randy's young daughter) makes surprisingly effective jazz material out of
a musical form usually disdained by all schools of jazz, achieving
surprising strength and a memorably lyrical melodic line.
The solo selections tend, probably inevitably, to be softer and tenderer,
emphasizing a rare feeling for the depth of ballads. The three familiar
standards, one original, and Tadd Dameron's overly-neglected "If You Could
See Me Now" (best remembered as one of Sarah Vaughan's finest early
vocals) all demonstrate that solo piano, for Weston at least, is far more
than just a matter of working without bass and drums. In a trio, Randy
meshes with his co-workers; alone, he sounds thoroughly self-contained,
seeming to gain vertically what he has given up horizontally, building
intensely personal moods. If there is less overt swing, there is more
thoughtfulness; less stride and more richness. It isn't necessary to make
any choice between these two quite different, but not at all contradictory
facets of his playing: the stylistic differences appear substantially and
fascinatingly greater than you'd find in most pianists - but that's hardly
surprising in a man who acknowledges, as his strongest early influences,
both Thelonious Monk and Art Tatum!
Weston, born in Brooklyn in 1926 and largely a product of the "School of
Hard Listening" to the forces that defined modern jazz on New York's 52nd
Street during the mid-Forties, has won extravagant praise from just about
even' critic who has been exposed to his work (among them: Nat Hentoff,
George Simon. Wilder Hobson) and was selected as "New Star" pianist in the
1955 Down Beat International Critics Poll. He has appeared in clubs
throughout the East and Midwest, including New York's famed Cafe Bohemia
and Birdland.
1957 Orrin Keepnews
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